The present invention is in the area of telephone call processing and switching, and pertains more particularly to intelligent call-routing systems, and equipment and methods for customizing and Personalizing Routing Rules and Protocol.
Telephone call processing and switching systems are, at the time of the present patent application, relatively sophisticated, computerized systems, and development and introduction of new systems continues. Much information on the nature of such hardware and software is available in a number of publications accessible to the present inventor and to those with skill in the art in general. For this reason, much minute detail of known systems is not reproduced here, as to do so would obscure the facts of the invention.
One document which provides considerable information on intelligent networks is xe2x80x9cITU-T Recommendation Q.1219, Intelligent Network User""s Guide for Capability Set 1xe2x80x9d, dated April, 1994. This document is incorporated herein by reference.
At the time of filing the present patent application there continues to be remarkable growth in telephone routing systems, with routing done both at or near point-of origin of incoming calls, and at call destinations. For example, systems are known to the present inventor that perform initial call processing before routing an incoming call to a destination switch, and further routing is done at the call destination in computerized telephony equipment, often termed customer premises equipment (CPE). The present invention pertains most particularly to routing at customer premises.
There are, at the time of the present patent application a considerable range of CPE systems available for use from various manufacturers, and, as state-of-the-art routing systems are typically computerized, there is a broad variety of software available for such systems as well. It is the software in general wherein routing rules are set, and the routing rules determine the decision-making paths a system follows in routing calls.
In current art, although there are widely varying systems in the art relative to routing rules, all such systems exhibit a common drawback. Typically such systems, once set up (programmed) to follow certain routing rules and practices, cannot easily vary, and individual users or groups of users, cannot change the rules arbitrarily. To tinker with the routing rules in CPE typically requires a highly-trained maintenance technician (system administrator).
What is clearly needed is method and apparatus which allows an individual user of a routing system, or a group of users, to alter and customize the routing rules of the system for particular purposes, which may change from time to time, depending on the users.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention a telephony call center is provided, comprising a plurality of agent stations, individual ones of the agent stations having a telephone having a telephone line port, and a computer platform; a local area network (LAN) connecting at least some of the computer platforms at the agent stations; a processor on the LAN having a connection to a wide area network (WAN) adapted for computer-simulated telephony; and a Telephone Application Programming Interface (TAPI)-compliant bridge circuit between the telephone and the computer workstation in at least one of the agent stations. The call center receives telephone calls at the telephones at the agent stations, and also receives computer-simulated telephone calls at the WAN connection, and distributes the computer-simulated calls to computer platforms at the agent stations.
In preferred embodiments the WAN is the Internet, and computer-simulated calls are Internet Protocol Network Telephony calls. Also in some embodiments the TAPI-compliant bridge may be used to monitor telephone status and activity by the computer workstation, which may report the monitored status and activity on the LAN to the processor on the LAN having a WAN connection. Further, the processor having the WAN connection may report status at the call center to a router at network level.
In still other embodiments there may be a data server connected on the LAN, the data server comprising a caller database, wherein data associated with incoming calls is used as a key to retrieve data associated with callers from the caller database, and the data is displayed on video display units (VDUs) of the computer platforms at individual agent workstations. Agent scripts may also be stored in a database, and displayed on agent""s VDUs according to data associated with incoming calls.
In another aspect of the present invention an agent station for a call-in center is provided, comprising a computer platform having a first communication port and a local area network (LAN) adapter, and adapted to receive and interact with computer simulated telephone calls; a telephone having a telephone line port and a second communication port; and a Telephone Application Programming Interface (TAPI)-compliant bridge connecting the second port of the telephone with the computer platform. In this embodiment the computer workstation is adapted to monitor transactions and status of the connected telephone via the TAPI-compliant bridge, and to report the transaction and status on a LAN via the LAN adapter. The computer workstation is, in preferred embodiments, a multi-media personal computer (PC) having a video display unit (VDU). In some embodiments an agent may utilize the TAPI-connected telephone to interact with computer-simulated telephone calls.
In yet another aspect a method for routing calls to individual ones of agent workstations in a call-in center adapted to receive conventional calls to telephones at the agent workstations and computer-simulated telephone calls to computer platforms at the agent workstations is provided, comprising steps of (a) connecting telephones at the agent workstations by a Telephone Application Programming Interface (TAPI)-compliant bridge circuit to the computer platforms at the agent workstations; (b) reporting by the computer platform at agent workstations to a network-level router the status of simulated calls at the computer platform and telephone calls at the telephone, monitored via the TAPI-compliant bridge; and (c) making routing decisions at the router based in part on the reported status of both kinds of calls.
In various embodiments of the invention taught in enabling detail herein, methods and apparatus are provided for handling both computer-simulated telephone calls and conventional calls at a call center, and also for making intelligent routing decisions at network level to such a call center.